In a future with families encouraged not to over-breed, Ender Wiggin is “a third,” the third
child born to his family — an “extra.”

Skinny and pale, he is bullied at school. But he has been observed by the state, which sees his
assets: how he solves problems during video games; copes with bullies; and exhibits cunning,
ruthlessness and measured compassion.

“The world’s smartest children are our best hope,” military leaders tell one another.

And Ender (Asa Butterfield) represents one “best hope” — chosen for Battle School, selected to
be a leader because young-adult fiction desperately needs another “chosen one.”

Ender’s Game, based on Orson Scott Card’s novel, is a glossy, humorless march through a
future in which kids are our best warriors, able to multitask combat duties and reason out
strategies for battle success in an instant.

On the screen, Card’s military meritocracy plays like
Starship Troopers without the tongue-in-cheek fascism,
The Last Starfighter without the wit.

But in the hands of South African director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi,
X-Men Origins: Wolverine) the story’s moral quandary — about kids learning to kill before
they learn compassion — stands front and center.

Ender’s Game follows Ender into Battle School, where he excels at mastering the skills of
combat command.

They’re all still children, argues the yin to his yang, Major Anderson (Viola Davis).

Indeed they are. They’re martial, militaristic kids culled from the population, formed into
teams and trained for battle in weightless simulations, learning the tactics that will serve them
in Earth’s war against the Formics — bug-eyed space travelers who once almost conquered Earth.

Ender is not the heartless killer his older brother (Jimmy “Jax” Pinchak) is or the empathetic
pacifist his sister (Abigail Breslin) turned out to be. Threatened by a rival, he outthinks,
out-negotiates or outfights each one in his turn.

Moises Arias and Hailee Steinfeld are well-cast as part of this distinctly multicultural school
of the best and brightest, and the movie perks up a lot when Ben Kingsley shows up as the
instructor for the last stage in training.

But, even accounting for the limitations of a franchise- introduction film,
Ender’s Game proves stiff.

The film is good-looking, cautionary and clever enough, but it lacks thrills.